Before we begin the main segment of this week's column, here are just a few notes. First of all, the latest terrible worm predicted to strike on last Friday was a dud. My impression is that things have changed radically in the virus and spyware arena; I have seen a drastic reduction in the number of service calls to disinfect these problems in my clients, and that is a good thing. I think most people now use anti-virus and anti-spyware software, and that software has matured considerably over the past year. As I said long ago, if everybody had these, there would be no virus problem, and it's finally happened. Thank you all!
Secondly, as I reported last week, I have returned the Avid video software and the vendor is supposed to be crediting my account. Of course, I lost the shipping payment both ways, but there was no restocking fee and the cost was cheap for the experience. I have begun to get more comfortable with the Adobe Premiere Elements software, and after digitizing almost two hours of video, there was no noticeable synchronization problem between the audio and video. A friend who is also doing this type of work, and was also equally frustrated by the Pinnacle Studio software also switched, but to the Sony Vegas product. I will get a report on that when I can.
One of the frustrations of my trade is that I keep hearing the same problems over and over again. But I try to keep smiling, and this column gives me a venue to both help correct the problem, and to rant a bit!
The problem this week is that I often get calls from people who say that their data has disappeared. Now, it is certainly possible that somehow the data was erased from their hard drive, but unlikely. It is much more probable that they just can't find it. I have often spoken before on the need to know where your stuff is on your hard drive, but this particular issue is a little more focused.
The issue is this: When you start a program and use File / Open (or something similar in the particular application) to open a file for use, the standard Windows Open dialog box pops up. The use of this dialog box is pervasive in Windows applications; a few do not use it, mostly music software. The box has a listing of your files in the middle, and you are supposed to pick one. But if people don't see their file in the list, they panic.
The list of files is only of the files in a particular folder. The folder being displayed is shown in a box at the top of the window. The problem is that the folder being displayed may not be the folder in which your data resides. Why not? The folder being shown depends on a couple of factors. Primarily, the folder shown by this Windows service is requested by the application. But the application itself (not Windows) has to remember, and sometimes for various reasons, this changes. It can change if you have saved your data someplace else, or perhaps a related application has opened a file in a different folder previously.
So, if you don't see what you want, the first thing to do is to look at the folder name at the top. If this is not correct, click on the folder name itself, and a tree-type list will open showing your current place on the hard drive. Navigate to where you need to go, and you should find your data.
This, of course, brings up the second aspect of the problem - people just don't know or remember where their stuff is. I can't help you much here. I can only recommend that when you start using a new program, pay attention to where you Save and Open the files, and keep that information for the future. Knowing where your stuff resides is also a key to doing proper backups.
Rant completed - ah, that feels better!
(Bob Seidel is a local computer consultant in the Southport - Oak Island area. You can visit his Website at www.bobseidel.com or e-mail questions or column ideas to him at bsc@bobseidel.com. For specific inquiries, please call Bob Seidel Consulting, LLC at 278-1007.)